Commonwealth Mercurial
by lobsterMatriarch
Summary: Come on, let's get complicated. In which former suburban mother Nora has less trouble adjusting to Goodneighbor than to its mayor. Enemies to friends to lovers.


I haven't posted on for a while, it seemed a good a time as any to add a few little one shots.

* * *

It wasn't the odd clothes, the open nose, or even the charred skin and bone that sent chills up her spine when she first met him. Nora had seen ghouls before, far too close for comfort if she was including their feral counterparts, she knew what they looked like. She wouldn't pretend to be a saint, it certainly her took time to adjust to their appearance, but her mom didn't raise her to be cruel or shallow and she wasn't about to pick up that habit now.

No, she was plenty prepared for his face. It was his eyes that took her back.

"Just consider this town your home away from home." He smiled, remnants of his lips drifting upwards to reveal surprisingly clean teeth, and his voice drifted like smoke through gravel.

Black eyes, jet black, and so glassy she could see her own reflection within the dimly lit streets of Goodneighbor. Didn't he ever need to blink? Dogmeat wasn't growling yet, so she assumed she would be safe, so long as he kept that knife where she could see it.

"So long as you remember who's in charge."

Ah, but there was the threat she was waiting for.

She debated following him as he turned to make his exit, not wanting to leave him with the upper hand, but her mind was failing her and she had nothing clever to say, and she knew it would be better to stay quiet than stammer and show any weakness in this unknown territory.

With eyes like that she would never be able to get a read on him, and she wasn't about to give him the luxury of seeing through her.

* * *

Nora did decide she'd see him later, after she'd had some time to clean up and learn her way around. Goodneighbor was new, and friendly enough when inebriated, and Nora quickly found herself missing her younger days in South Boston back before she'd met Nate. Another ghoul— Daisy, she thinks her name was— traded with her for some stimpaks and a can of Cram, and together they'd lamented the loss of the public library to time and wasteland brutality. Nora tried her best to hide her unease when she saw that Daisy had eyes like him.

Nora was a lawyer— either she learned to read faces, or she floundered. Those black eyes were going to be a problem.

A little bit of poking around said that Bobbi No-Nose was the person to ask for work around here, and Nora was in dire need of caps and ammunition. The chance to flex her sharpshooting skills may have been a bonus, and Dogmeat never missed a chance to chew on some mirelurks.

She passed by the Old State House on her way, trying not to linger too long. What would the Bostonian Society say if they knew their raison d'être was being occupied by drifters straight out of the Night of the Living Dead? Most likely the same thing the stuffy ladies of her pre-war book group would say if they could see her popping mentats or shaking down a corpse for valuables.

She smiled a bit at that thought, and did her best to ignore the prickle of jet-black eyes on her neck.

* * *

Bobbi was a ghoul, but her eyes were the cloudy grey-blue Nora was used to and it took about four minutes of speaking with her to realize that there was no storeroom under Diamond City. Where they were actually going was still a mystery, though, but Nora needed the caps and they had dug far enough that she was willing to see it through to the end.

And of course, of _course_ the end was him.

Her stomach had fallen the minute she saw the ginger girl— Fahrenheit, she knew now. Of course they were stealing from the devil himself, and of course Nora was going to sell out Bobbi. Better the enemy you know than the enemy you don't.

So she followed Fahrenheit out of the storeroom that belonged to the much-loved mayor of Goodneighbor, the guns of neighborhood watch at her back, and allowed them to lead her up to what very may well be an attempted execution.

Attempted. She may have seen him stab a man to death, but God have mercy on him if he tried to take her out before she could save her son.

So they marched, leading her through the run down remnants of the Old State House (surprising how well the spiral staircase held, she thought), past the armed guards and up to a small den, where he was leaning on the wall, playing with his knife and most definitely waiting for her. She kept her eyes on the knife as it moved, flicking forwards and backwards and catching the dim light, and she wondered if he would aim for her stomach or if he was practiced enough to fit it between her ribs.

"Well, if it ain't Bobbi's little patsy," he smirked, and the knife disappeared into John Hancock's coat. "Here, for protecting my stash."

Whatever it is Nora was expecting, it definitely wasn't payment. Especially not good payment. If nothing else, she could say with certainty that the mayor wasn't cheap.

"Wise decision, shutting Bobbi down like that."

"I didn't have much of a choice." She wasn't his friend, and if nothing else, she needed him to know that.

His smirk grew, unfazed. "That's the good part about being the mayor. You're always the safe bet."

He was more casual with the knife gone, less ruthless predator, more amused housecat. Neither option was a good one if she was the mouse.

"So I've been thinking."

 _Never a good sign_ , she supplied.

"I'm not liking how this all went down, with you, with Bobbi. 'S not the impression I'm looking to make here, and it's got me feeling a bit like a tyrant. At this rate, I'm gonna be turning into the man."

Definitely a housecat, watching her dance in circles and waiting for the right time to strike. That hint of sincere disappointment in his voice didn't mean shit in her experience— most likely he was a very good actor. A career in politics usually helped develop that kind of skill.

"Alright, don't answer." He said. "But heavy hangs the head with the tricorn hat, and all that shit. I've been watching you, and I know you seem like my kinda trouble. If you're looking for a little assistance in getting wherever it is you're going, I'm down."

…huh.

"Aren't you the mayor? Can you really just leave? "

"Hey, I've walked out of here plenty of times. Can't be getting too comfortable holed up in here, that's not what being in power's about."

"Why me?"

"I ain't the ponderous type." He deadpanned. "But I like your style. A lady of few words, speaking softly, carrying a real big, explosive stick. I'm not about to fight an instinct here."

"And what can you offer me?"

His wrinkled eyebrow twitched, face still impassive. "Sister, I'm no slacker, I pull my weight. And there ain't no one who knows these parts better than I do. You need information, I'm your guy."

And that was it. She needed information on the Institute, he might be able to help her get it. Her mom didn't raise her to be stupid, either, and she wasn't going to let some creepy black eyes ruin any shot she had of getting closer to her son. So long as he kept his knives where she could see them, they'd be fine.

"Done."

* * *

It didn't take Nora long to realize that the glassy sheen to his black eyes wasn't natural, and was probably a result of the heaviest chem use she had seen outside of a raider den. When they got back to Sanctuary, she might have to hire Nick to figure out how exactly he wasn't dead of an overdose.

"You look like you could use a break, sister." Outside in the sunshine and away from the piss-stained streets of Goodneighbor, that leer of his looked a lot more like a smile.

Still, she shook her head. Her two mentats from this morning were taking their time wearing off and the thought of combining them with the inhaler in his hand was less than appealing.

He shrugged. "Suit yourself." Another hit, then back in the bag.

They were making reasonably good time on their way, veering from the convoluted trail she and Dogmeat traveled on their first arrival. Not much trouble, either, save for the bloatflies she'd picked off with her pistol. With only a day's walk left to go, Nora was at least getting used to the feeling of eyes pricking the back of her neck.

"You this quiet for everyone?" He said, stretching his arms above his head as he walked.

"I'm focusing."

"Not gonna fault you for trying not to die out here, but I'm pretty sure we're good. Day like this we'd hear someone coming about a mile away, and with all that heat you're packing they don't stand a chance."

He wasn't wrong, but she'd been clinging for a reason not to engage with him any more than necessary. If he was going to start poking holes in her excuses, this shaky alliance might not last much longer.

"Come on," he said. "You gotta throw me something. Where're we going?"

"Sanctuary."

"'S that the Minuteman place I keep hearing about?"

"If you mean the main settlement, then yes."

"Do they got a bar set up in Sanctuary yet?"

She rolled her eyes. "No. The trader takes priority. Believe it or not, not everyone's first order of business is getting drunk out of their mind as often as possible."

"World like this, sister, you'd be surprised."

She practically snarled in response to that. Mayor to his city, responsible for his people, and here he was taking off with a stranger and a sack full of chems, wondering when his next opportunity to get shitfaced would be.

He paused a few steps behind her, and that prickle on the back of her neck increased tenfold.

"Listen. I'm not expecting you to like me."

She was ready to roll her eyes again when the telltale sound of a shotgun loading cut through the silence. She turned, hand already on her 10mm, and there he was, shells in hand.

"It'd make the trip a hell of a lot more pleasant if you try," He paused to add a second shot. "But so long as we're out helping the people who need help I don't give that much of a shit."

He snapped the barrel back in place with practiced hands— as good with a gun as he was with a knife, she noted for later— and stared up at her. It might have been a glare, or an appraisal, or it might have been something else entirely, and if she was speaking to Preston, or Piper, or Nick, she would know in a heartbeat. As it was, all she could do was stare back.

"But if we're gonna do this, you got to trust me."

Her heart leapt into her throat as he took aim, her eyes still locked onto bitter jet black—

And she heard the cry over her shoulder, felt the spray of fresh blood as it soaked the back of her vault suit and her hair. She spun on axis (thank god for those childhood dance classes) and landed with split second timing, faced with two more raiders who had thought them easy picking. The shotgun fired again, and raider number two fell, body slumped by her feet. She unloaded her pistol five times into raider number three before they fell, using one hand to fish through their pack for supplies.

Some ammo, a few caps, and some jet. She could make use of that. With some struggle she managed to one-handedly shove the findings into her pack.

Even through the blood spray dripping from her hair, she felt that telltale prickle.

"You can take your finger off the trigger now. Ain't no one else here planning to shoot you."

It would be easy to play this off as adrenaline. Just because they'd only seen three raiders didn't mean there weren't more just around the corner, or that the raiders weren't bait for something worse. The Commonwealth was unpredictable, to put it kindly, and she could claim that her itchy trigger finger had nothing to do with his skill with a shotgun.

But it wasn't adrenaline that kept her finger stuck on the trigger, eyes still on the shotgun in his hands, and she had a feeling that he would see through the lie.

She had to drag her apology out from the deepest pit of her gut, and even then it barely sounded sincere.

"Sorry."

He nodded in her general direction, jaw set. Apology accepted, no hard feelings.

It still took a few more seconds for her gun to find the holster.

* * *

"So's this a ghoul thing? Cause I didn't take you for the bigoted type."

Nora had brought him back to Sanctuary and made an immediate beeline for Nick, trusted friend and safety net. Nick had promised to help her into the Glowing Sea, seeing as he couldn't really be affected by radiation, and she was just fine with having an excuse to leave the mayor behind for a while. In fact, she was still fine when Cait asked her to pause her search and help her with her addiction struggles. And after that, when Deacon needed help with a synth escort job, she wasn't so heartless that she couldn't stop to help someone find their freedom. That she could continue ignoring the mayor's pointed looks and inquiries about when they were heading out again was just a bonus.

Part of her hoped that maybe, just maybe, he'd get fed up with all that sunshine and fresh air and go home. She wasn't so lucky.

"No, it's not a ghoul thing."

He was flipping that knife again. "So 's just a me thing. Guess I should feel flattered."

He was following her through Sanctuary, her almost comfortable home that she had so foolishly led him to. He had a bed here now, he'd set up camp, and whenever she returned from her travels she'd find him drinking with MacCready or catching up with Nick. What his game was, she had no idea.

"You can feel any way about it that you want to."

"Well it ain't flattered."

"That's your decision, and I'll respect it."

"Oh come on, Nora." He dragged out her name in that hissing drawl of his. "I didn't come out here for the scavenged beer, I'm looking to live a little. You really gonna keep me on the bench?"

"I brought you here because you said you might have information I need."

She heard his footsteps stop. "About your son, right?"

Hers stopped right after.

"Who the fuck told you?"

"Does it matter?" He crossed his arms, jaw set and black eyes unfriendly. "'S not like it's some big secret that you're on a mission, sister. Heading out asking half the friendly Commonwealth if they've got any information on the Institute, chasing a scientist out into the Glowing Sea and then all of a sudden your name starts popping up along the Railroad."

Her hands were shaking, whether with rage or fear or frustration at the invasion of her privacy…

"Sister, it's my job to know everything that happens in my territory. And if I know, other people know. I ain't saying this to freak you out but you make yourself damn easy to track out here."

He took a step closer, all long limbs and feral grace.

"If I didn't know better I'd guess that you ain't been in the Commonwealth very long."

She stared him down, and for the first time she thought that maybe, maybe he almost made sense. All traces of a smile were gone, replaced with a thin, hard line across his mouth. His eyes were cold, and maybe he finally learned to resent the bitter, unfriendly stranger who'd been nothing but suspicious of him since the minute they met.

If he landed the first blow, that would mean she had free reign afterwards to do what she liked. She wished she didn't look forward to that as much as she did.

"Daisy wouldn't shut up about you, you know." He never broke eye contact. "Said you were gonna help her out with cleaning up the library."

Daisy, the other ghoul with the black eyes. Of course she reported back to him.

"That Connolly kid, too, and he's a damn good citizen. They all speak the world of you. Don't look so surprised, I just said it's my job to know this shit."

Her hands were still shaking, but none of this made any sense. She was busy, planning to head out with Preston come morning, and he picks now to come in and make a point about how she's wronged him, or herself, or the people of Goodneighbor.

"Where are you even going with this?" She asked. "What do you want?"

He laughed, though it sounded bitter. "Good fucking question. I guess I'm wondering, before I take my damn leave, why it is that the lady who takes so well to my town takes so badly to its mayor."

Nora hadn't bothered to give it much thought before now. He introduced himself with murder, reveled in violence, refused compromise, subtlety, all the things she'd so prided herself on. He didn't bother working in the shadows, while Nora worked in subtlety and subterfuge. She'd lived up to codename Whisper and spent her time reading faces and drawing connections, putting pieces together alone and thinking she'd be smart enough to learn everything that way.

While she'd spent all this time trying to get a read on the unreadable, he'd just gone out of his way and fucking asked about her.

"…Fine." She huffed. "Just pack your shit and lets go. There's a settlement to the East that's got some mutant trouble."

If she didn't know better, Nora would say he was giddy as he slung his pack over his shoulder. He'd gotten the upper hand from the moment they met, and he never let it go.

* * *

"I got a name, you know." He was pulling a bloodied pipe rifle off of a super mutant, examining it carefully before popping out the ammo and tossing it aside. If nothing else, Nora learned she could definitely count on him in a fight.

"Of course I know," she said.

"But you never use it."

Nora struggled to fish a railroad spike out of the gory mess behind him. "Because it's— ugh," she stumbled back as the spike gave way. "It's ridiculous. The whole persona is ridiculous. I mean, you've got a flag tied around your waist."

"Whatever you say, Whisper. You got armor made of Wonderglue and three desk fans in your pack, and you gonna complain about my flag?"

Well, it sounded stupid when he put it like that. "Why John Hancock, then?"

"Clothes make the man, sister. And sometimes people need a John Hancock to get things moving."

They worked in silence for a little bit, clearing out the mutant camp before settling down around a pre-made fire pit. It was a lucky find for this time of night, when the dogs and the raiders would start howling at the moon and visibility was at an all time low. The super mutants had left a few mattresses mostly unbloodied, and the stench of the place had aired out enough to be bearable.

Nora was just trying to work out how to swallow her pride and admit he had a point when he spoke again.

"There was a lotta shit in my life what needed changing. It seemed like… well, like it was more than some fuckup from Diamond City could handle. I figured Hancock had pulled it off once before, maybe he could do what that other guy couldn't."

She sat back on her heels, looking him over. "Did he?"

"Well, ain't no one getting cracked open on the streets of Goodneighbor anymore, at least no one who don't deserve it. We got homes for people who can't live anywhere else. We got a community."

He settled in next to her, far enough for comfort but close enough for backup, draping his elbow over his knee. She was sure at this point she'd never be able to get a read on his face, on dark glassy eyes shining red with the fire's reflection, but she wanted to know if he was as sad as he sounded.

After all that big talk about wanderlust, was he homesick?

He must have felt her eyes on him, because he turned to face her. For all intents and purposes she should have been frightened, staring down this monster of a man who turned all of her instincts on their head.

She moved a bit closer to him. "Did I ever tell you why they gave me the name Whisper?"

Hancock poked the fire with his shotgun. "Nah, but if you got a story I'm dying to hear it."

* * *

They cleared out the mutant problem, building some defenses for the small farm before they left to check on a potential courser spotted down south. A handy coincidence, since Nora needed that some courser brain right about now. Outside of being frustrated and ready to rip open any bit of Institute fuckery with her bare hands, supposedly coursers had some kind of chip installed that would help her find those bastards and take back Shaun.

Hancock seemed pretty thrilled to be helping out on principle, and she wasn't lamenting his company so much these days. He did have tells, now that she was looking for them— he moved slowly but constantly, a lazy sway of chemical relaxation, but only when he's comfortable or trying to make an impression. Anger made him fast, and he was plenty hot blooded. Fear made him smaller, but he was dangerously unafraid. No sense of self preservation at all.

And when he was pleased, when he watched her helping the settlers she'd taken under her wing or popping mentats for a boost, the burnt skin around his eyes would wrinkle and they seemed to shine.

"Something on my face there?" Hancock asked.

"No, but was your ear missing this morning?" She grinned as his hand flew up frantically to check. One he was sure both ears were as intact as he'd left them, he glowered.

"'S not nice to play with a ghoul like that, you know. It's been a while since I lost anything but that don't mean I ain't on guard."

"Like that missing toe?"

"You keep this up, I'll take one of yours to replace it." He was doing it again, eyes crinkling at the corners.

"Oh, I'd like to see you try." She nudged his side shoulder-first as they walked, the crumbling ruins of Cambridge kicking up dust around their feet.

The first time she'd touched him had been to pull him backwards from a frag mine, and she never ceased to be surprised by how warm he was. He was thin, certainly, more wiry than she was and prone to shivering at night, but that first time she grabbed his hand and pulled, she hadn't expected to him to feel so close to human.

She'd been touch-starved in the months since she'd stumbled out of the vault. So when Hancock slung an arm around her shoulder, keeping her pressed to his side, it was easy enough to write off her skipping heartbeat as 200 years of isolation catching up with her.

 _What would Nate say?_ she laughed to herself as she felt the warm press of his ribs into her side.

* * *

"So a ghoul walks into a bar—"

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Oh my god you're insufferable."

"Really? You ain't even gonna let me finish?"

"—bartender says "we don't serve ghouls here."" She supplied for him.

"Ghoul says "that's fine, is the human fresh?"" She could hear the smile in his voice, and she offered him some of the mentats she looted from the building. Maybe the boost would remind him of exactly how often he used that joke.

"Much obliged." He said, and took one with a wink.

They'd been successful this far, taking out the courser as a clockwork team and letting his captive synth go free. Jenny, she'd called herself, maybe a name that she'd picked on her own or maybe a nickname someone had given her, but it suited her. Self sufficient and unafraid Jenny.

Nora ran her fingers over the tiny chip in her pocket. One step closer.

"Y'know, you did good back there." Hancock cut through the silence.

"Do mentats always make you so complimentary?"

"Nah, but you can get me a daytripper if you wanna watch me turn into a sap. I'm just saying, not a lotta people out there who'd offer a total stranger shelter and supplies. 'Specially if that stranger just so happens to be a synth."

Nora glanced over to him. "You thought I'd just leave her there empty handed?"

"Hey, I'm just saying there's a lot of types out here that think a few extra stims are worth someone's life, and you ain't always come across as generous this far." He said. "Tell you the truth, I was wondering what it was Daisy and the others saw in you."

There was guilt, gnawing in the pit of her stomach again. "And now?"

"I get it. You're looking out for the people, or at least the people who ain't me. Glad we're seeing eye to eye on something."

She kicked at some of the broken concrete littering the road. "Well it's not like you made the best first impression either."

He crossed his arms. "If I'm remembering things right I saved your ass."

"I can save my own ass, thank you very much."

"I ain't doubting that, sister, but it's the gesture that counted. Goodneighbor's not made for Finn's type, trying to prey on people just looking for a place to sleep. Least not anymore."

Not anymore. He'd said that a lot, that he wasn't his old self anymore, that his town was different now that Hancock was the one in charge and the smoothskin he used to be didn't exist.

"So you're trying to make the place seem more welcoming by murdering someone at the front door? Does that work for you?"

He laughed. "Commonwealth diplomacy. Most of the strays I take in ain't quite so well armed as you, and having a cold blooded killer on their side is a good thing."

Nora remembered her time back at the Old State House, her quick peek upstairs to find people starving and dirty, crammed together on mattresses laid out on the floor. At the time she'd tried not to think too hard about what sort of operation Hancock was running, but now… now she thinks she had the wrong idea entirely.

"For drifters, settlers, freaks who just don't fit in anywhere else, they gotta have people like me around or they don't get to sleep at night." They'd stopped walking now, and Hancock took the opportunity to light a cigarette. "People like you, too."

Of the people, for the people. That's what he'd first told her when they'd met, when she was too busy looking between his eyes and his knife to actually listen to a word he said.

"You know," she started, careful of her words. "I can be looking out for you, too, if you wanted."

He raised the gnarled skin of one eyebrow. "'S that the case?"

Instinct took over and she plucked the cigarette out of his mouth, taking a long drag before setting it back in place. Some habits died hard, even habits given up for pregnancy and suburban idealism. "Maybe. As long as I'm looking out for everyone else, that should probably include you."

He grinned. "Sister, I wouldn't have left Goodneighbor if I didn't trust you to do right by me."

"So confident!"

"Weird, huh? You sure weren't the confidence inspiring type."

She stole his cigarette again, spilling ash down her sleeve as she popped it back into her mouth. Fake grape flavor, just like the mentats, and she wondered briefly if he added something to them when he rolled.

"Come on." She said. "Before we start building the transporter, I promised Daisy I'd clear out the library. I could use your help."

"Then let's get this freakshow on the road."

* * *

Hancock wasn't a ghoul who felt fear particularly often. He threw himself into harm's way on a whim, red coat hiding the stains and stitches of bullet holes, a toothy grin of bloodlust spreading as he cut down raiders twice his size. He needed chems like air and wandered into gunner territory seeking trouble. Even on that one occasion when they stopped into Diamond City, it was his hotheaded anger more than fear that drove her to get him out.

So why was it that now, with her standing on the freshly constructed reactor platform and him watching from a safe distance, that he looked so terribly, terribly small?

Before she had time to say anything, Tom flipped the transmit switch and the world went white.

* * *

Shaun was gone. There were no two ways around it. The realization hit her like a deathclaw from the inside, scraping away at her until she was certain she was hollow and bleeding. Her baby boy was gone and a fully grown monster had taken his place, and she was going to have to put him down.

She fell back out of the institute three days later, cut raw and bled dry, and she wasn't going to think about it too hard when she stumbled right forward into Hancock's chest.

"God damn, sister…"

God damn was right.

* * *

The first time she kissed him he pushed her back, and she was about ready to cut his throat.

"Come on, Hancock…" she did the seduction thing well, she knew she did. The breathy voice, the half lidded eyes, sliding her thigh up between his. She leaned in again, but still he turned his head.

"You're high."

"So're you, you're always high." He was hard against her leg, and she dragged her thigh along the length of him. His shirt was buttoned low, always buttoned low, and it was so easy to push aside and press teeth and tongue to the ridges of his skin. Time slowed and she could savor the rough texture, the slight hint of salt that still pushed its way through all his scars.

"Cut the shit, Nora." He growled, hands on her shoulders. When she didn't listen, he shoved her off. After a bottle of whiskey, a daytripper, and two hits of jet, her reflexes weren't quite good enough to catch herself.

"What the f—" the words stuck in her mouth, her tongue like cotton. "What the f-fuck is your problem then, huh? Not good enough for you?"

He wouldn't look at her, and the urge to tear him to pieces grew. Her legs were sluggish, refusing to let her stand with any dignity, and when she fisted her hands in his ridiculous frilly shirt she knew that she was just embarrassing herself.

She knew, and she couldn't seem to stop.

"You telling me…" She paused, needing to get her bearings as the world spun around her. "You telling me you never wanted to fuck me even once?"

He did look at her at that one, and she cursed those beetle black eyes that kept him hidden from her. He'd always had the upper hand on her, ever since they first met and she never stood a damn chance and now here she was making an ass of herself in his lap. At this rate she was going to be just as bad as a friend as she was as a mother.

Her first sob came sharp and loud, the kind of luxurious display reserved for places where they didn't need to worry about her noise level for survival. She bawled and he didn't bother to hush her, letting her forehead fall into his chest.

He watched her there for a while, shaking like a child with her hands still fisted in his shirt, three sheets to the wind in and still not able to numb the aching wounds in her chest. It might have been minutes, it might have been hours, she didn't have the presence of mind to know how long she cried. It felt like years before the sharpest of the pain was gone, and she was left exhausted with a dull ache in her chest for company.

Thin, warm arms wrapped around her, holding her upright against her urge to pass out.

"It's okay, sister." He said, keeping her steady on his chest. "I got you."

* * *

Her absence from the Commonwealth had been bad, but not as catastrophic as she'd worried. Hancock traveled back with her as far as Sanctuary, where she was immediately inundated with settlement troubles and coursers running amok, not to mention all the tasks Shaun had saddled her with before she left the Institute. She found it easier that way, easier to busy herself and forget than collapse and never get back up again. All the tasks that she'd put off for the sake of finding her son seemed a lot more pressing now that the next step in her plan was to kill him.

It put space between her and Hancock, too, which she found much easier to cope with. A halfhearted "sorry" and some mentats weren't going to patch things between them this time.

He did stop by at the edge of Sanctuary that morning, watching as she and Piper packed to leave. Maybe he wanted to say goodbye, maybe not. She couldn't look him in the eye long enough to know.

"You look after yourselves out there." He said as she passed.

She nodded. Wasn't much else to do.

Nora felt the prickle of eyes on the back of her neck all the way out of Sanctuary.

* * *

It was over a week before she made her way back to Sanctuary with armfuls of junk and a very unhappy Piper. Nora knew she was poor company, and inflicting herself on anyone besides Dogmeat at this point was probably a bad idea.

Especially bad when you added the armfuls of junk to the equation, but the Slog needed new turrets and—

"You and me? We gotta talk." A voice like smoke through gravel, the scraping kind that skins your knees when you aren't expecting it.

"Give me a minute. I just need to help—"

"One minute, then. I ain't waiting long."

Nora glanced at him over her shoulder before she left; his arms crossed over his chest, brow furrowed. Not a friendly chat, then.

She and Piper made quick work of unloading their packs at the workshop— stacks upon stacks of circuit boards would hopefully keep them covered for a while. Piper eyed her over carefully, not sure whether it was her place to speak.

"Listen, Blue…"

"It's okay. It's going to be fine." Nora tried her best to sound comforting, but from the look on Piper's face she wasn't too successful.

"Whatever you say." She dumped out the last of her pack with a loud clatter. "But hey, I know you've had a rough time of it lately so you watch out for yourself, alright?"

"I will."

"Promise me."

"Piper, I will. I swear it."

Piper wasn't satisfied, but she gave a curt nod and went on her way.

No one could possibly know the full story of what had happened, not yet. Piper and Nick knew bits and pieces, that her son was in the Institute and that she wasn't going to be able to get him out, that she and the mayor had some kind of falling out on the road. The only person around who knew everything at this point was

"Hancock."

Heavy hangs the tricorn hat, especially today. The way he stood, propped against the side of the rickety house with his hat pulled low kept his face almost entirely in shadow. "You got time for me now?"

"Of course. What's going on?"

Maybe if she played dumb, this could blow over a little easier. She couldn't deal with losing him, not now, not with everything that happened and everything that was about to happen.

"You, me, a pile of chems and some kinda serious trauma. I'm guessing you haven't forgotten."

So, no playing dumb. She wished she could see him, lift up that hat and get a really good look at what she's dealing with, at how she can fix this and go back to stealing cigarettes with his arm around her shoulder.

He took a deep breath.

"I ain't a stranger to being someone's crutch, you feel me? We all gotta cope somehow. I seen a lot of people out there making bad decisions, or being on the end of someone else's bad decisions. And for a while I wasn't real shy about lending a helping hand for the night, so long as they asked nice."

He looked up, eyes harsh.

"Didn't expect it to be you asking, though."

And just like that she looked to her feet. For a while she wished she'd been too high to remember, that she could honestly turn around and laugh with him like it never happened.

"Neither did I."

"So I gotta know, what was it exactly that you were thinking? Trying to be close to somebody, trying to fuck things up for somebody? Trying to fuck things up for yourself?"

She was silent. None of those were the full answer, but she wasn't sure she could tell him the real one just yet.

He waited for a while, patient until he wasn't. With a dry laugh, he brushed past her.

"I'm real sick of being a bad decision, Nora. Nothing good comes from chasing someone too out of their mind to know better, and I'm not about to do that to you."

His voice was tinted with something unknown, and she kept her eyes on his back as he left. Could he feel the prickle of her eyes, the way that she felt his?

* * *

He'd said his part, it seemed, and he might not have been avoiding her but he sure wasn't going to seek her out. He nodded politely when they passed on the streets of Sanctuary, flipping his knife, no comments about when they would be leaving or where she might lead him.

Nora was a lady of few words, and old habits die hard, so when she found him alone in the ruin of a house that he'd set up camp in, she did the first thing that came to mind.

His lips were thin and brittle on hers but so, so warm, and when she pulled away she thought he was going to curse her out again. She put her hand to his lips before he could talk.

"You're no one's bad decision, John Hancock."

"You still gonna be saying that when you see me in the light?"

She kissed him again, trapping his face between her hands. He rested his hand on her waist, still hesitant, still waiting for something she was hoping she was ready to give.

"Is this the jet talking?" He asked.

She smiled. "Didn't take any."

"Not yours. Mine."

She laughed, pulling back for a minute to take him in. He'd never be old world handsome with his caved in nose and those scary black eyes, but this wasn't the old world and Nora damn well knew she couldn't go another week without him at her side.

"I want you." She traced the scarred skin from jaw to cheek and watched the grin light up his face.

"Well shit." He pulled her tight against his chest, hips pressed to hers. "If that ain't the sweetest thing I heard in my whole life."

And then he kissed her in an assault of teeth and tongue, bony fingers clawing at her back and shooting heat between her thighs. She pulled back to breathe and he took advantage, sinking sharp teeth to her neck even as he worked the zipper of her vault suit. With one hand she managed to undo the flag around his waist, slipping her fingers under the worn fabric of his pants and delighting in his animal growl humming against her skin.

She damn well hoped that by the end of the night he will have devoured her whole.

* * *

They'd found a sleeping bag in the abandoned cabin, and with the warm breeze and clear sky it seemed like a perfect night to be staying outside. Hancock busied himself with the fire while Nora scanned the area, gunning down every radroach and bloodbug in sight.

"You finding us dinner, sunshine?"

She shuddered. "For you, maybe. I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole."

"Come on, you know a grilled radroach ain't half bad. Kinda chewy, maybe, but it'll keep you ticking."

"You're gross."

"You love it."

She grinned, kicking the radroach in his general direction. He eyed it up and down before throwing it on the fire next to a pot of squirrel stew. Nora wrinkled her nose.

"Just so you know, if you eat that I will never kiss you again."

He clutched a hand to his chest. "Hey now, you can't mean that."

"I can and I do, Mr. Mayor." She smiled, taking a seat on the ground next to him. "I don't lock lips with bug eaters."

He snuck his arm around her waist. "But ghouls and chem users are just fine."

She shrugged. "Only if they are _exceptionally_ charming."

The hand around her waist slipped down to cup her ass; one sharp smack and she yelped her surprise. He laughed, a sound that rattled his ribs from the inside out, and the force of her kiss sent them sprawling on the ground.

"Let me tell you, sister, I could get used to this." He ran his fingers through her hair.

She leaned into the touch. "I think you're going to have to. You and me, we've got a long way to go."

"You figure out what you're gonna do?"

She did, of course. Desdemona and Deacon had been running her ragged, as if her cover with Shaun wasn't taking enough on it's own. She'd continue her work with the Railroad as planned, and she would wipe her slate. Their adventures through the Commonwealth proved an excellent distraction, but for now that was all it could be. If she was lucky she could put it off a while and talk to Shaun, maybe find some scrap of herself or Nate left in him before she gave him a tyrant's death.

She thought for a moment about hanging him off the balcony of the Old State House.

"Hey now. Don't you space out on me just yet."

She snapped back to attention just in time to catch him before he landed another slap on her ass. He'd slipped a few mentats when she wasn't looking, and with a quick kiss and a clever tongue she took them from him. Chalky and sickly sweet, they dissolved on her tongue alongside any thoughts she had of being anywhere else.

He was looking past her, the night sky reflected back through glassy black eyes, and even with the ruined world around her and her pre-war life falling to pieces, she knew that out here in the Commonwealth she still had a chance for something better than survival.

"Cap for your thoughts?" He asked, turning to her with eyes full of stars.

What would the ladies of her pre-war book group say?

* * *

Little meteorite who wanted to be a star  
Kissing as if you had only one minute to live.  
There is never enough time, there is never enough wine  
Living with you

You won't get used to it, but you will live through it  
Whatever it is you fight  
It feels like magic cause you can't control it  
Either way you lose

-World/Inferno Friendship Society, American Mercurial


End file.
